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BuyMeACoffee silently dropped support for many countries (2024)

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343 points beeburrt | 3 comments | 16 May 25 06:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.676s | source
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rwarfield ◴[16 May 25 07:07 UTC] No.44002548[source]▶
We have normalized the treatment of the financial and payments systems as things that exist primarily to perform law enforcement surveillance functions. It's the same dynamic that leads to debanking of small accounts - payments firms exist on thin margins and the potential fines for inadvertently servicing a bad actor are stratospheric, so it's entirely logical to play it safe by refusing to service anyone whose profile looks even the slightest bit risky.
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ThePhysicist ◴[16 May 25 08:04 UTC] No.44002883[source]▶
These companies aren't public utilities, no one would complain about a US bank not doing money exchange business with entities in the Ukraine or Belarus, why would that be different for US companies offering donations over the Internet? The fact is that all platforms that facilitate cross-border money transfers between two parties without clear services or good being exchanged are used for all kinds of money laundering, and governments try to contain that for good reasons. In the end they probably don't care much about the revenue they make in these countries as it's probably negligible. Again, their good right to do so, I don't see any issue with this at all.
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growlNark ◴[16 May 25 13:36 UTC] No.44005366[source]▶
> no one would complain about a US bank not doing money exchange business with entities in the Ukraine or Belarus

Frankly, it's none of my state's damn business who I exchange money with. Their beef with other states is their problem—why are they dragging us through their bullshit?

If they want to collect taxes on it, at least that has the veneer of doing their job properly, and I'm happy to pay it.

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passivegains ◴[16 May 25 16:27 UTC] No.44007310[source]▶
if someone, for example, exchanges funds with a foreign nation to evade sanctions while they illegally occupy another, it really is their state's business.
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1. growlNark ◴[16 May 25 18:27 UTC] No.44008448[source]▶
Only because the state asserts their existence with violence. We certainly have little-to-no say in how the states in which we live behave, but we're all subject to their whims.

Personally, I have little patience for the pretense that the geopolitical theatre we're all subjected to reflects the people who live in the states represented in such theatre. Baudrillard had it right all along.

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2. passivegains ◴[21 May 25 16:44 UTC] No.44053340[source]▶
Only because the state asserts their existence with violence.

I'm comfortable saying if a foreign nation rolls military vehicles across a border and starts shelling apartment buildings, those buildings' residents have every right to assert their existence with violence.

We certainly have little-to-no say in how the states in which we live behave, but we're all subject to their whims.

I can't say for certain how much my state listens to me specifically, but if they do, I'd tell them their whims should be such that other states can't do the roll-across-border-blow-up-apartments thing. (to anyone, not just me.) Those are good whims. Everyone should be subject to those whims.

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3. growlNark ◴[22 May 25 18:36 UTC] No.44065220[source]▶
> I'm comfortable saying if a foreign nation rolls military vehicles across a border and starts shelling apartment buildings, those buildings' residents have every right to assert their existence with violence.

Of course, I have nothing against sovereignty. I just think states greatly overestimate what they're owed for simply not mowing down their own citizens. If my state causes another state to invade me, of course I'll side with the invader—my own state has failed me.